Mischief managed
by jediavatar
Summary: Jedi aren't always dull...that's just the face they present to the galaxy. A series of unconnected and (hopefully) humorous oneshots about the mischief that the Jedi get up to...particularly one Master/Padawan pairing that drive each other (as well as everyone else) insane. No real plot, but likely plenty of silliness.
1. Obi-Wan's unexpected side

**This will likely be a series of (hopefully) humorous oneshots I write whenever plot bunnies decide to breed in the back of my mind. **

**General disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars**

"ANAKIN!"

Obi-Wan Kenobi's voice rang through the apartment, tinged with a faint hint of exasperation. Knowing his master well enough to recognize his annoyance, Anakin stuck his head tentatively out the door of his room, wondering what had provoked his normally calm master to call for him in such an undignified manner.

"Master?"

"Care to explain?" Obi-Wan gestured to a mess of parts scattered on the table, couch and floor of our small sitting area.

"I was building a droid, Master." Duh. "I'll clean it up."

"I'm sure you will," Obi-Wan replied, sarcasm creeping into his tone. "That wasn't what I meant, and you know it."

"Well…"

Obi-Wan pinched his nose and sighed. "Who is it for?"

For? "For, master?"

"Yes. Who were you planning on pranking this time?

"Pranking?" Obi-Wan's eyes narrowed, clearly sensing the evasion.

"Yes." His tone allows for no argument. Anakin sighed, hanging his head slightly.

"Master Windu." Obi-Wan gave him a disbelieving look. "What? It's a good one?"

"Oh? Care to enlighten me?"

"Of course!" Anakin was always eager to talk about his pranks. "It's going to ambush him in the hallway this afternoon and dump dye on his head. The dye is semi-permanent and will take him days to remove."

"Indeed."

"Yes! The dye is orange, it'll look good on him."

Obi-Wan stared at Anakin, a look of faint disapproval on his face. Anakin thought he detected a hint of humour in his eyes, though, so his master couldn't be too mad.

Finally Obi-Wan turned away. "Master Windu has a habit of walking through the gardens in the early morning to visit Master Yoda at his favourite meditation spot. The foliage overlaps on the path and is an excellent hiding place." He walked away.

Anakin stared. Then stared some more.

Had Obi-Wan just helped him with a prank?

* * *

Three days later, Obi-Wan and Anakin sat at the table in the kitchen, eating breakfast. Anakin was absentmindedly swirling food around on his plate, occasionally taking a bite, while wondering how Obi-Wan could eat so elegantly this early in the morning.

His thoughts were interrupted by the doorbell ringing. Obi-Wan rose gracefully from his place at the table and went to answer it.

The door opened to reveal a very irate Mace Windu, the top of his bald head dyed in swirling patterns of yellow, orange and blue – Anakin had refined the mixture of paints dispensed by the droid after deciding orange by itself was too boring.

"Kenobi," the Master growled, sounding extremely irritated.

Anakin shrunk in his chair, sure he had been discovered. Master Windu, after all, did not make a habit of early-morning visits to the Knight/Padawan quarters.

"Master Windu?" Obi-Wan was as composed as Anakin had ever seen him as he gazed back at the master, though his gaze flickered briefly to the man's head.

Master Windu kept his gaze on Obi-Wan. "I had thought," the man growled, "That the responsibilities of a Master would have given you more maturity."

"Oh? And when in recent times have I acted immaturely?" Obi-Wan's voice carried the faintest hint of amusement that seemed to further aggravate Master Windu.

"I had expected better of you, Master Kenobi." A grin that Anakin almost had to call evil flickered across his face. "And I _expect _to meet you in the training halls in one hour to express my…dissatisfaction in your behaviour."

"Of course," Obi-Wan answered, his tone perfectly bland. Master Windu offered one last glare before turning and striding away. Obi-Wan calmly closed the door and returned to his breakfast, Anakin staring at him open-mouthed.

"Master? What just happened?"

"Ah, yes. I have been summoned to experience Master Windu's particular brand of justice."

"But why?"

"As retribution for the prank played on him, of course."

Anakin stared at him, utterly confused. "But … you didn't play the prank on him. I did."

Obi-Wan gazed serenely at him. "Of course you did. But you have not been at the temple long enough to receive a reputation for pranking." A slow smile. "I, however, have."

Anakin stared. "Really?"

"Of course. Though I chose to paint his head pink ... with a dye that glowed in the dark."

A ringing thud sounded through the apartment as Anakin and his chair hit the floor.

The chair was not impressed.


	2. The Swamp

**I don't own Star Wars, or anything here that you recognize. **

The first hints of light streaming over the horizon of the unremarkable planet in the Outer Rim revealed a very disgruntled and muddy Jedi Knight striding through the swamp, his younger and faintly embarrassed Padawan trundling along behind him.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was Not Happy. He and his fifteen-year-old Padawan had been sent by the Council to investigate a minor diplomatic disagreement on a planet he had never heard of. The mission had somehow morphed from a simple series of discussions to investigating an alleged smuggler ring to clearing a business leader of trumped-up charges imposed by an annoyingly self-absorbed politician who now had plenty of time to contemplate his supposed perfection inside a planetary prison.

Somehow the whole series of events had led to being chased in a speeder by a horde of enormous insects that vaguely resembled Andorrian dragonflies, except with razor-sharp teeth. Of course his Padawan had to crash the speeder in the middle of the swamp in order to evade the beasts, where the speeder was immediately consumed by some sort of giant burrowing worm.

And Anakin had lost his lightsaber – _again _- to the creature that thought metal a gourmet treat. Naturally.

Behind him, he heard his Padawan grumble, the sound accompanied by a squelching sound as he attempted to pull his leg free where it had sunk to the thigh in a particularly deep patch of mud. Obi-Wan turned and wordlessly seized his Padawan's arm. He pulled Anakin free from the mud before turning and continuing his long strides towards the nearest village he could remember from the map.

Anakin fell in step beside him, attempting (unsuccessfully) to clean his hands on his robes.

"Mud is nearly as bad as sand," the Padawan grumbled as he flicked a patch of mud off the sleeve of his robe.

"Perhaps, if you do not wish to experience the wonders of the terrain, you should refrain from crashing our speeder," Obi-Wan replied tartly.

"Hey! I only crashed it to escape those insects!" Anakin objected.

"Which we only encountered because you decided to take a shortcut through the swamps despite being warned to avoid them," Obi-Wan reminded the boy.

"It was a shorter route! Besides, I wanted to see the nests."

"You wanted to see the nests of the swarming insects we were warned to avoid at all costs."

"So what? The guide said the nests were pink. How could insects with pink nests be a threat?"

Obi-Wan glared. Anakin flinched.

"The lesson to be learned here, _Padawan_, is that warnings from the locals should be heeded unless we have a good reason to disregard them."

"Yes, Master."

"Also, pink does not guarantee harmlessness."

"Yes, Master."

"If you recall, Master Ki-Adi-Mundi was definitely _not _harmless after you dyed his robes pink."

Anakin giggled at the memory, replying "Yes, Master" with much more attentiveness than the previous acknowledgements.

Obi-Wan nodded before setting out again. The two walked in silence for another minute before it was broken again.

"At least I didn't get the blame this time."

"But Master," Anakin replied mischievously, "It's hardly my fault if your reputation caused the Masters to blame you every time a prank gets past their defences." Obi-Wan, as a Padawan, had a reputation for pranks that were nearly impossible to pin on him and were conducted against Masters no sane Jedi would ever try to prank.

"Yes, but thankfully the Masters are starting to acknowledge that some pranks may be due to my incorrigible Padawan rather than myself."

Anakin grinned. "You still get blamed for some, though."

Obi-Wan glared in reply. "Yes, because you framed me, Skywalker."

"Was it really my fault if they thought you the only one capable of sneaking a swarm of biting midges into Master Yoda's quarters?"

Obi-Wan sighed, fighting exasperated giggles at the memory. Master Yoda had come racing out of his quarters, pursued by a swarm of midges and having been doused somehow by a fluid that caused the thousands-strong swarm to do nothing but buzz around his head for the rest of the day. By nightfall Yoda had been covered in small bites and hopping mad (literally) at the culprit – whom he assumed to be Obi-Wan.

It had been an excellent prank, he had to concede, but had resulted in Yoda grumbling for days, at the end of which Obi-Wan's shins were one solid bruise from the Tiny Terror's gimer stick.

"Perhaps one of these days I will have to frame _you _for something,' Obi-Wan grumbled in reply.

"What? Your own Padawan?" Anakin gasped, acting shocked.

Obi-Wan replied with a withering glare, which failed to achieve its purpose as Anakin collapsed into giggles. He glared further as Anakin laughed, stumbling slightly as he did so – and accidentally shoving his startled master face-first into a mud puddle.

Obi-Wan came up sputtering for air, mud and some orange-ish stuff streaked liberally over his hair, face and clothes. Anakin gulped slightly at the expression on his Master's face, before a smirk replaced it.

"Oh, it's on," Obi-Wan grinned before lobbing a ball of mud, which splattered over Anakin's chest.

Anakin squeaked and tossed a handful of mud at his master while wildly diving for cover. A battle commenced, the two chasing each other through the swamp exchanging fire and dodging the other's attacks. It was with an almost mad cackle that Obi-Wan finally grabbed Anakin and tossed him into a waist-deep mud puddle.

Several hours later, two grinning Jedi streaked liberally with mud walked with perfect dignity through the gates of the small settlement. The guards, who primarily watched for swarms of insects or carnivores that occasionally descended on the inhabitants, stared in bewilderment at the two figures. It was perfectly possible, even probable, to get muddy from a trip through the swamp, they knew. What they didn't understand was how the older had managed to cover himself in strands of red and green vines over a full-body layer of mud, while the younger was a kaleidoscope of mud of many different colours that had to come from at least ten different mud puddles – surely, as a Jedi, the young man wasn't that clumsy?

After a few moments of bewildered contemplation, the guard stepped aside to let the figures pass, silently attributing their state to Jedi eccentricities.


	3. The new look

**I don't own Star Wars, especially anything recognizable.**

**Enjoy!**

Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi was Not Happy.

His mood had little to do with his present actions. Admittedly he was surrounded by dozens of battle droids firing nearly simultaneously upon him, separated from the rest of his troops, with no backup against his dull (in more ways than one) gray opponents. Yet he was holding his own with exquisite skill, and the situation itself was one so common as to be barely worth mentioning.

Nor was its cause the weather. Admittedly the dreary fog and misting rain, coupled with the rocky terrain that made footing occasionally unstable, was not conductive to his mood, but it was certainly no worse than any other planet. Indeed, he would normally find the slipping and exclamations of his metallic opponents somewhat amusing. Certainly their aim was even more dreadful than was normal, and he might normally have been tempted to smile at their frustrated outbursts as they slipped and stumbled through the treacherous footing.

Unremarkable as his circumstances may be, they still were not helping his current mood. Indeed, his grumpiness threatened to break through his carefully cultivated mask of serenity (and innocence, on those occasions when he earned the ire of a master higher-ranking than himself).

For six days before, Obi-Wan had woken from an exhausted sleep to find his appearance remarkably changed.

Normally he was a light sleeper, but the previous day he had fought for hours, first in an intense space battle to reach the planet's surface, then on the ground to cover the retreat of a group of clones that had been stranded behind enemy lines for nearly a week. Obi-Wan had successfully distracted the enemy, but the fight had been so long and drawn-out that he had collapsed into an exhausted sleep shortly after returning to the Republic base and making his report to the Council.

He had awoken to find that some malevolent individual had struck. His hair and beard had been soaked in some unknown substance and coaxed into still, rubbery spikes. Each spike had been dyed a vivid colour, many of them so bright he initially felt convinced they would glow in the dark.

It had been amusing, if exasperating, at first, but less so when he had tried to return his hair and beard to their previous, unblemished condition.

Neither the dye nor the spikes would come out. The dye itself seemed permanent, and the spikes, though malleable enough for him to still sleep comfortably, sprung back to their original state the instant he arose. He had even attempted to dye his hair back to its normal shade, but the prank dyes were extremely resistant to being covered up, not allowing another dye to coat them.

That had been bad enough, but it had been worse the following when the base was infiltrated. The clones he had rescued were initially been behind enemy lines to steal intelligence from the Separatist base, and on their way out had also retrieved a holocron that had been stored in the same area, which one of the troops had recognized as significant and removed. Apparently the holocron had some significance.

Obi-Wan, in his gloriously pranked state, had caught Asajj Ventress exiting with the holocron. Upon catching sight of his vivid new hairstyle, she had nearly collapsed into laughter, and continued twitching and giggling throughout the ensuing duel.

Indeed, she had refused to take him seriously at all, and was frequently gasping with suppressed laughter too hard to even engage in their normal playful banter.

And Obi-Wan admitted, in the depths of his mind, that he enjoyed their banter, and was quite miffed that they couldn't engage in it.

The holocron had, of course, been destroyed in the course of the fight, with Ventress fleeing shortly after, so the Republic had lost possibly vital intelligence while he had spent his time being laughed at by his opponent.

Since then, of course, he had been trying to discover the identity of the culprit. Anakin had been the obvious suspect, but he had not (to Obi-Wan's knowledge) been present in the base when Obi-Wan's hairstyle was assaulted. Neither had his Padawan been present, as Obi-Wan would not have put it past the teenaged girl to try something like this.

Many of his troops had the opportunity to infiltrate his quarters, but he doubted any of them would do so, being too well disciplined and too respectful of their general. Obi-Wan was quite stumped.

Over the following days he had attempted many ways of removing the hairstyle, amid various bureaucratic tasks and one harrowing space battle – Obi-Wan and his astromech, R4-P17 had encountered a swarm of irritating buzz droids that had damaged his starfighter and caused R4 some minor damage, though when he later examined his companion in his quarters the damage was mostly cosmetic. Still, the space battle and damage to the droid who was his faithful companion when Anakin (and his even more tenacious R2 unit) weren't present had not helped his mood.

He now took out his grumpiness on the battle droids surrounding him, for once dropping his usual aura of complete serenity, and destroyed them in record time.

After the battle, he returned to his quarters to make yet another attempt at defeating the foe that was an atrocious choice of clashing hair colours. After trying half a dozen different chemical agents, some of which were distinctly _not _meant for cosmetic use, he was nearly ready to chop it all off, his only cause for hesitation the prospect of returning to the rather annoying haircut from his Padawan years. No, he decided, he would continue trying, if only until he could track down Anakin (who he was convinced was responsible, somehow, for his current state) and force the no-doubt irritatingly smug youth to return his hair to its normal, reassuringly normal state.

He still couldn't help, in the privacy of his own quarters, setting down the most recent chemical attempts at hairstyling with just a touch more force than was necessary. He pulled on a cloak with a hood that allowed his hair, at least, to be mostly hidden, before striding – no he did _not _stomp, than you very much! – out of his quarters to meet with the officers who no doubt would be hiding amusement behind their disciplined masks through the entire course of the meeting.

Behind him, the R4 unit which had unobtrusively followed him back to his quarters let out a quiet sound that any sentient being present would describe as being suspiciously close to a self-satisfied chuckle.


	4. The Maze of Wiring

Tru Veld was taking an exploratory trip through the maze known to others as the Temple Mechanical Hub (convinced that, if he wandered it enough, he might actually learn his way around) when he felt a very familiar presence.

Anakin, he knew, enjoyed exploring the maze of substations, control boards, and security stations even more than Tru did. He also knew that Anakin had a tendency to cause trouble nearly every time he visited the area – Tru was honestly shocked that the Council had yet to forbid Anakin from stepping foot in the control hub (though really, a diagram showing every aspect of the control hub would be so difficult to accurately design that they may not have bothered due to the impossibility of the task).

Deciding he would like forewarning about any odd happenings that would later occur throughout the Temple, Tru took a detour and attempted to find his friend.

Fifteen minutes later he had given up on the hallways – _blasted maze, how does Anakin navigate it so well?_ – and had taken the ventilation and maintenance shafts which, in a defiance of engineering everywhere, were actually much simpler to navigate than the hallways.

He finally found Anakin, who had both legs hooked over a bar along the roof and was hanging upside down to tinker with a panel near the ceiling.

"What are you doing?" Tru queried, wondering whether this would be the sort of prank that he wanted to help with, or the sort to run away screaming and hide in Coruscant's underbelly pretending to be a granite slug for the rest of the month.

Anakin twisted to throw him a mischievous grin as he finished rewiring the controls before replacing the panel and dropping, twisting to land on his feet – somehow accomplishing the motions smoothly and without ever looking away from Tru.

A shiver, perhaps of simple unease, or perhaps a warning from the Force, threatened to make its way up Tru's spine.

"I'm rewiring the Temple. Hopefully, if I can make everything work, the Masters won't know what hit them tomorrow."

"This isn't going to involve flitnats or fungi, is it?" Tru asked nervously, remembering Anakin's last prank.

"Not this time, unfortunately – Yoda confined me to the Temple for months and now I can't find my supplier. Sad, really…" Anakin drifted off, a silly grin on his face as he drifted for a moment in the memory before snapping back to attention. "No, this time I'm just tinkering with the lighting, sound system, doors...that sort of thing."

Tru wasn't sure whether to be relieved or worried – probably the latter – but trailed off after Anakin regardless. Over the next hour, he followed Anakin as his fellow Padawan visited over two dozen different panels and control boards, half of which Tru didn't know existed.

Finally, Anakin ran off with a hurried goodbye, late to something or other, and Tru returned to his quarters. Try as he might, he still couldn't figure out everything Anakin had done, though he was feeling uneasy as nothing seemed to have happened yet. There was still nothing when he went to bed, nor when he woke up the following morning.

He got his first clue when he opened the door. The light fixtures in the hallways shone much more dimly than normal. Tru began a list in his mind of what was affected: lighting, check.

Stepping into the hallway gave another clue. Streaks of glow-in-the-dark paint were stretched liberally along the floors, ceiling and walls. Anakin must have hit the maintenance droids to fill them with paint (Anakin really liked messing with paint) and program them to paint in different patterns.

He stopped for a moment to examine the designs. They were rather attractive, in an eye-wateringly painful sort of way. They were also so painfully vivid that he soon began squinting when he walked down the hallway.

This led to the discovery that, when squinting, it almost looked like you were taking a colourful trip through hyperspace. Oddly artistic for Anakin, if appropriate for his friend's tastes.

He soon discovered that his friend had programmed the intercoms in different areas to play various soundtracks (sound system, check); had somehow managed to paint the bottom of the lake in the Room of a Thousand Fountains yellow (water features, check), had programmed the lights in the meditation chambers to blink and change intensity following the tune of a popular thousand-year-old ballad about the last Jedi-Sith war (upsetting grumpy old masters, check), and had made another failed attempt at smuggling a decorating droid into Yoda's chambers, which according to Temple legend had not changed in over five centuries (failed attempt at pranking Yoda, check).

He was, for the first hour, amused, but soon grew irritated. The turbolifts went in an unpredictable direction whenever you entered one; the doors opened and closed to their own rhythms, so any Jedi entering them had to time their entry precisely (or use the Force to open the door). He noticed that many Jedi had clearly ignored the 'no emotions' tenet of the Code and used the Force to tear the door out of their path, resulting in doors that would only close partway or sparked ominously. The food droids in the cafeteria would only prepare the sorts of food that nobody but Yoda enjoyed (most Jedi that day either made their own food or went out into Coruscant, as nobody could figure out how to correct their behaviour).

Tru heard from a younger Padawan that the Jedi Council chamber now played the sort of clichéd, ominous music found in second-rate horror films. Speaking of horror, every screen in the Temple was playing clips of several irredeemably idiotic films meant for very small children.

Really, Anakin had completed an incredible amount of work. The series of pranks held at least thirty components, which guaranteed that every single master in the temple was frustrated within an hour. Tru also noticed several droids discreetly following some of the most famously serene masters in the temple (whose reputations as calm and serene were in the process of shattering), and would have bet his lightsaber that they were recording footage for Anakin to laugh at later.

It was only later in the day that Tru found out Anakin's full intentions.

Anakin and Master Kenobi had left the previous night for a two-month mission, placing him well beyond any discipline from the Council, and thanks to how complex all the systems were to begin with nobody in the temple could figure out how to make everything stop.


End file.
